OPTIMAL SHP DEVELOPMENT ON CANAL FALLS

Abstract

Small hydropower (SHP) is one of the most common renewable, economic, non-consumptive, non-radioactive, non-polluting and environmentally benign sources of energy.The cost of small hydro power generation can be maintained at attractive levels, despite periodic modifications in the regime of fiscal incentives through higher efficiencies and improved performance obtained from new hydro turbine designs; larger scale and more efficient manufacturing; better levels of operation and maintenance and development of sites in clusters. In India, about 5718 potential sites each having capacity up to 25 MW have been identified in various parts of the country. A vast potential of small hydropower is available on canals falls which falls under the range of low head hydropower schemes. Development of the technology and equipment to exploit low heads at reasonable cost made the canal fall type hydro power plants not only to come into existence, but also made them popular. Low head projects are inherently expensive, as the discharges, which need to be passed through the turbines require large machines. It is therefore always desirable to minimize their capital cost and one of the ways to reduce the cost could be the clubbing of nearby falls. In the present study an attempt has been made to discuss various parameters affecting cost of canal falls based scheme. The cost of the scheme- has been determined for different alternative layouts based on different combinations of falls existing in a canal and an optimum layout has been suggested based on distance between falls to be combined. It has been found that clubbing of falls is cost effective if the distance between two falls is around 0.5 km or less. In case distance between consecutive falls 3km or more, then it is cost effective to develop SHP on individual falls.